


Love is Not a Victory March

by shealynn88



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-08 00:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19095856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: For the song prompt "Hallelujah."Cas and Dean over time, loving each other even when it destroys them.This love blasts in on razor wings, hauls him out of Hell, scars him out of the gate, tells him he’s nothing.  Tells him he’s everything.





	Love is Not a Victory March

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drawlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drawlight/gifts).



> Rated teen for language.

The Bible lies about a lot of things.  But Corinthians, Dean thinks, is the worst.  The most insidious. Because love, he  _ knows, _ is not patient.  Or kind. Or slow to anger.  It is a force of fucking nature, and it burns everything to the ground.

When Dean loves it’s an inferno.  It destroys everything. His family.  Himself. Anyone unlucky enough to get in the blast radius.  And so he swears off it early. Family, of course. Can’t help it, can he?  But anyone else? Hell no. He’ll take  _ care  _ of them.  He has to do that anyway.  Why the Hell else would he be here?  

But love?   _ Fuck, _ no.  That’s for people who aren’t killers, through and through.  That’s for people who aren’t themselves bombs and blades and gunpowder waiting to go off.

He doesn’t even see it coming - he’s blindsided completely, because he thought it would be soft, like that poem about fog and cat feet. That he would see the threat before it took root.

Fuck, no.  This love blasts in on razor wings, hauls him out of Hell, scars him out of the gate, tells him he’s nothing.  Tells him he’s everything. 

Brings a holy blast radius of its own.

Dean hates until he suddenly doesn’t, until that fire burns a new color, until it’s made of lips and hands and desperate groans in dark corners.

_ Pleases, _ and  _ sweethearts, _ and gasps and moans, and his name in a language that’s been dead for the entire history of the human race.  His name on lips made of flesh and Grace and all the things he’s never deserved.

The first time they kiss it’s knives and fire, and it’s supposed to be goodbye because Cas is going to die at the hands of another impossible being.  They grasp each other like it’s the end of the world, because it is. Like every other damn day. They burn together like those monks, immolating themselves in protest.  Cas is a force of Heaven in his arms, burning, biting, hard and soft and wanting and needing and when has Dean ever been able to say no to someone who needed him? 

Never, that’s when.

Love is supposed to be never having to say your sorry, but they have to apologize forever, for the scars they inflict and the pain they cause, and it’s as close to hate as you can get without quite tipping over the edge.  They gut each other, knives and words interchangeable. Dean uses teeth to hurt, against skin, against syllables, making marks he wants to be permanent. Paint this motherfucker in blood, because whatever side they’re on, they belong to each other, and it’s the hardest thing Dean’s ever done.

_ “You’ve made me weak,” Castiel agonizes.  “I’m small, now.”  _

_ “You don’t have to be small for me,” Dean promises against his lips, fingers too tight.  “I don’t need you to be less.” _

_ He never is again.  Never less than an atom bomb on the verge of exploding. _

If he could go back, he thinks he’d never choose this kind of torture.  It’s Hell all over again, carved to the bone, exposed and moaning, possessed in ways Heaven never planned.  They own each other, down to the soul, the grace, scarred on an atomic level with that poison love. It torments them both.  They’re as likely to carve one another up as they are to fall into each other’s arms, pressing bodies together in desperation, until the chasm between them opens up again, throws them back into the tsunami of great beings’ whims.

They are puppets.

_ “Cas,” Dean breathes. _

_ “Dean, please,” Cas asks, eyes closed, long fingers grasping. _

_ He’s forgotten his body, lost the memory of skin on skin and shared breath, the sharp knife of fingernails and teeth and  _ missed you,  _ needed  _ you.

_ Dean reminds him. _

A momentary respite - hands, not swords.  Fingers against shoulder blades, where wings might be if they were somewhere else.  Mouths breathing each other’s air. Desperate and wanting. It’s never enough but they take what they can get. It’s cold.  Broken. It’s always been broken, and it’s not what either of them would take, left to their own devices. They might take their time, learn each other slowly, luxuriate in one another.

But love doesn’t wait for the right moment.  Love  _ demands. _  Love tears and burns and destroys. 

Love rebuilds and scars over wounds that no one could recover from.  No one, but for love.

They leave each other shattered and they keep coming back, because love demands a price.  It takes its pound of flesh and comes back for more.

Because love is every single circle of Hell.

Love is everything.

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me over on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shealynn88).
> 
> Similar Destiel Stories:  
> [Communion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18841417): _He’s not greedy. Just this moment. Forever promises to be Hell, so why not just this single moment of something pure and true and base and human?_ Rated M  
> [Are We Human](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18606427): _“I wanted you to see it the way I do,” Cas says in a hushed tone. “I wanted you to feel human, too.”_ Rated G


End file.
